Posted prepared by the Dryland Pastures Research Team – R. Lucas, S. Olykan, D. Moot, C. Teixeira and A. Mills. Earlier this year, Prof. Derrick Moot discussed ‘Planning for sub clover dominant spring pastures in autumn’(1) so that farmers would have high quality feed for their lactating ewes. There’s a good reason for the focus … Read more
In these three short videos, taken on 3 August 2016, Derrick talks about the current soil moisture status of a shallow and a deep soil as we prepare for the spring growth season in our dryland systems. In the first clip we see a lucerne stand on a deep Templeton silt loam soil at Lincoln … Read more
On 29 July 2016 Professor Derrick Moot headed out to the Ashley Dene research farm to look at an experiment being conducted by Masters student Teresa. This experiment is investigating the effects of nine different herbicide treatments on the survival and productivity of five different subterranean clover cultivars established in autumn and spray at one of two different … Read more
On 1 February 2016, Dick Lucas ventured out to the MaxAnnuals grazing experiment to investigate the recovery of the dryland cocksfoot pasture established with subterranean and balansa clovers at Ashley Dene, Canterbury. Topics covered include yield, germination of the annual clovers and target populations for high quality spring forage. The potential for a ‘false break’ … Read more
In this video Prof Derrick Moot discusses the differences between established and establishing lucerne stands in relation to the rate at which the roots explore and exploit water stored in the soil. Known as the extraction front velocity (EFV) this is a measure in millimeters of soil per day that the plant roots access to … Read more
A dry spring in Canterbury has resulted in our dryland pastures at Ashley Dene being destocked on 25 Nov. Spring rainfall of 78 mm is only about half that expected in an average year and pasture growth has now ceased. In this video Derrick Moot discusses grazing mangement of lucerne in the spring period and … Read more
In this video, taken on 9 October at Ashley Dene, Derrick Moot describes in more detail the management we applied to the spring set stocked lucerne treatment for research purposes in order to develop appropriate on-farm guidelines. Weed control and the invasion of the problematic perennial tap-rooted and rhizomatous weeds which indicate the stand is … Read more
As a follow up to our last blog post on how to successfully implement a set stocking phase in you lucerne grazing system we thought we should show you what will happens if the stand is set stocked with either too many stock and/or for too long in spring. Basically, for research purposes, we’ve halved … Read more
In this blog post, filmed at Ashley Dene on 9 Oct 2015, Derrick Moot outlines the grazing management required to successfully set stock lucerne during early lactation. Using this method the persistence of the lucerne stand in the long term should not be detrimentally affected. Also a copy of the Derricks presentation at the New … Read more
Derrick Moot talks about grazing a runout lucerne stand. Video taken 6 October 2015 at Ashley Dene while ewes and lambs are grazing paddock 4 of a 6 paddock rotation in the first grazing cycle (approx. 1 min).